beginner

All right. Ready for some serious mapping? Let's map a xylophone.

What? You think that you can't put a xylophone on a map? Not possible you say? Inappropriate? Perhaps. Let me explain myself.

I'm at a mapping party in Colorado, at a ski resort, organized by my dear friends, the Coasts. And when I am at a mapping party organized by dear friends, I want to do a good job of mapping. So I've been mapping the village.  read more »

How can I add an OpenStreetMap map to my web site?

It's easy. There are three steps.  read more »

A Tale of Two Cafés

A common conversation I have with new OpenStreetMap contributors goes something like this.

How do I put my business in OpenStreetMap?
Did you see the tutorials?
Yes, I did that. But it doesn't look right. I want my business to be more prominent.
... and more prominent than your competitors?
Yes, please!

Okay. Let's look at the right way to do this. The question is, How do I control the appearance of my business in OpenStreetMap?

And this article is the answer.  read more »

A question came up on one of the OSM mailing lists¹ about what to use as the name of a business. The name of a business is one of the key items that distinguishes that business from their competitors, along with location. Both of these things are important to mappers. We like to get location correct; that's kind of the point of OpenStreetMap. And once we have the location of an object, we generally want to name it.

So why are some businesses so hard to name? And what is a mapper to do about it? Let's have a look.  read more »

What is the OpenStreetMap Planet file? When do I need it and when should I avoid it? What do I need to know about Planet?  read more »

The German OpenStreetMap community is the largest single-country community in OpenStreetMap. How do they do it?

One advantage that the German OpenStreetMap community has had since 2008 is a great book about OpenStreetMap, written in German! Coincidence? I don't know. But I do know that not only does the English-speaking OpenStreetMap community now have one book, but it has two. Nice.  read more »

Let's go to the park, and put the park on the map.  read more »

Let's add a trail to OpenStreetMap.

Multi-use trails add character to a neighbourhood and to a map. Here is a way to add your local trail to OpenStreetMap. This is a suitable first mapping project when you get a GPS receiver, and this is the sort of mapping that you can do with family and friends.  read more »

There are several editors for contributing OpenStreetMap data. Some describe JOSM as powerful. Others describe it as opaque or User Unfriendly. The truth is that it is just selective about its friends. Let's make friends with JOSM.  read more »

The terms Mapnik and osmarender can be confusing to OpenStreetMap newcomers. The OSM community uses the term Mapnik to refer to multiple things. osmarender also refers to more than one thing. And if that weren't enough, each of Mapnik and osmarender refer to things that are similar. We can't fix this, but perhaps we can clear it up.  read more »